Sand And Sorrow

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All Rise...

Judge Daniel MacDonald found this to be the very definition of an "important film."

The Charge

Imagine the gods of history looking down on us all, after our abysmal
failures at protecting millions of innocent human lives from their own
governments—failures of the first order. And imagine them saying to us,
"We'll give you another chance. But this time, so as to be sure you get it
right, we'll do it in slow motion, and we'll call it Darfur."

The Case

The ongoing genocide in Darfur is an important issue for many enlightened
celebrities these days, with stars such as George Clooney (Michael Clayton), Matt Damon (The Bourne Ultimatum), Mia Farrow
(Rosemary's Baby), and Steven
Spielberg (War of the Worlds) using
their clout to bring attention to the 2.5 million displaced citizens. But what
can be hard to explain in a sound bite is that this large-scale tragedy that
continues to unfold is the product of key events taking place in Sudan over the
past fifty years, and the new HBO documentary Sand and Sorrow does well
to educate viewers on what happened, and why we need to act.

Writer/director Paul Freedman (Time Machine: Rwanda—Do Scars Ever
Fade?) pulls no punches in illustrating just how desperate and horrible the
situation is in some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps, bluntly
presenting images of dead bodies and crying children within the first five
minutes. It's shocking and affecting, but that's the point. "This is
what we are talking about," the photography screams. "This is real and
it is happening right now." It's impossible not to sit up and take
notice.

Sand and Sorrow quickly moves from its brief survey of current
atrocities to an engaging and well-considered history lesson. As narrated by
Clooney, we learn about the internal divisions within Sudan that developed after
the country became independent of Britain, the civil war that followed, and how
that led to state-sponsored killings of non-Arab people of Darfur. Maps and
charts help make the dense information much more easily digestible than it
otherwise would be.

Making the issue more accessible, Sand and Sorrow follows a few
individuals who are working to end this series of atrocities. Through the
actions and commentary of Harvard professor Samantha Power, human rights
activist John Prendergast, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and
high school students Hannah and Riley MacDonald, a comprehensive picture
develops of what is being done, why it is or isn't working, and what more must
happen to save the people of Darfur.

Sand and Sorrow is a harrowing and provocative film, spurring an
array of emotions throughout its 94-minute running time: anger, sorrow,
confusion, inspiration, desperation, and even hope. While the rhetoric is dire,
Sand and Sorrow doesn't exist solely to depress or guilt the
audience—its intention is to encourage further investigation, and most
importantly, action. In what I found to be the most profoundly moving element of
the picture, members of Human Rights Watch, while interviewing IDPs, give their
children crayons and paper on which to draw. The images they get back—of
bombings, bloody murder, dismemberment, and destruction—reveal so much
about the everyday pain and horror in the lives of these kids.

While the current United States government is certainly taken to task for
conspicuously using the word "genocide" to describe the Darfur
conflict seemingly to mask a lack of real action, Sand and Sorrow is not
targeting any particular political stripe, with the exception of the Sudanese
government itself. The aid that has been provided by the United States, Britain,
and Rwanda is discussed and praised, but is also dissected for its shortcomings
in providing a real solution. North American media is found to be apathetic in
the face of this human disaster, since it devoted ten times more coverage to
Martha Stewart's trial than to Darfur in 2006.

Although released in non-anamorphic widescreen, the video quality of Sand
and Sorrow is surprisingly good. Some of the older footage suffers from
predictable distortion, graininess, and lack of detail, but the contemporary
video is clean, free of artifacts, and has good color accuracy. Some edge
enhancement and haloing is present but not distracting. The two-channel stereo
sound is serviceable, with speech coming across clear and well-balanced.

This is a very well-done documentary. Simplified enough to be comprehensible
in an hour and a half, yet with more than enough detail to grasp just how
difficult a situation this is to solve, Sand and Sorrow is a valuable and
important piece of work.